RFK Jr. will not run for re-election in a number of states. He plans to support Donald Trump in these states.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is partially withdrawing from the race for the White House. He announced this at a press conference on Friday evening German time. Kennedy said he no longer had any reason to believe that he could win the election.
He would no longer appear on the ballot in contested states. However, he would continue to run in other states where he would no longer have any real influence on the outcome. He also declared that he would now give his support to Donald Trump. Trump declared shortly afterwards that he wanted to “thank Bobby”.
Kennedy’s family, on the other hand, reacted clearly to the decision. “Our brother’s decision to support Trump is a betrayal of our father’s and our family’s values,” RFK Jr.’s siblings Kathleen, Courtney, Kerry, Chris and Rory wrote at X.
The nephew of the legendary former president John F. Kennedy has no chance in the presidential election – in polls he is only getting around 5 percent on average. However, both the Democrats and the Republicans are looking at him with concern. The election is set to be a neck-and-neck race between Trump and Harris. Kennedy could challenge both sides for crucial percentages. At the moment, however, the polls suggest that his candidacy is more damaging to Trump.
The significance of Kennedy’s decision has to do with the complicated process of US presidential elections. While most of the 50 states are firmly Republican or Democratic, a few are politically hotly contested. Close races are expected in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin in particular.
The role of these swing states is in turn determined by the US electoral system: with their votes, voters decide on the composition of a 538-member electoral college, which then elects the president in December. To win, candidates do not need the most votes overall, but rather a majority of the 538 electors – i.e. at least 270. In presidential elections, a distinction is therefore made between the actual majority of voters (“popular vote”) and the majority in the electoral college (“electoral vote”).
Kennedy has recently been making headlines with sensational stories. A few weeks ago he said he had disposed of a bear corpse in New York’s Central Park. In 2014 he found a dead bear cub, loaded it into his car and later left it in the famous park in Manhattan, he said. He had actually wanted to skin the bear and keep the meat in his refrigerator, but then had to rush to the airport. At that time a dead black bear was actually discovered in Central Park – the mysterious discovery puzzled the authorities. Before that, Kennedy had made headlines because, according to a newspaper report, he believed that a worm in his brain was responsible for memory loss a few years ago.
